


In the Shadows

by seekingferret



Category: Hebrew Bible
Genre: Curtain Fic, Engineering, M/M, architecture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-27
Updated: 2011-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:39:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/pseuds/seekingferret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curtainfic about the Parochet</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Shadows

He falls asleep evenings in Oholiav's arms and he can hear a beautiful cacophony of hammering as he and Oholiav build his first Tabernacle, the one that will last forever. Selah.

He wakes up mornings in Oholiav's arms and, after the morning ablutions, sings a hymn of thanksgiving to the Lord. He's tone deaf, so he offers his songs in private. Even Oholiav refuses to let Bezalel sing anymore. He cannot deny such a part of himself expression, though. He overflows with the joy of the Lord's embrace.

He builds the Tabernacle twice. If that isn't a sin of excess, it should be, but then, Moses too couldn't resist the temptation to create the Tablets twice. The gift of God's eternal beauty is too immense to walk away from. So he builds the Tabernacle twice. The first time, he builds it in his head, with every beam exactly where it's supposed to be, every joint aligned so precisely you can't see where one piece of acacia wood ends and another begins. The menorah of his mind's eye glistens out of a single piece of beaten gold, sparkling with an inner luminescence. The cherubim dance back and forth on top of the sacred ark.

The most important feature of his architectural achievement are the people. Orderly lines of men and women in blue and scarlet robes stream past the priests in their white tunics, singing songs of praise to the Lord. They sing in perfect harmony, and in his head, he joins them anonymously. He stands among the men of the tribe of Judah and sings in tune with his kinsmen, a song of dedication.

He spells out his vision to Oholiav in the tent they've begun to share and they work long hours head to head turning the shapes he sees with perfection in his head into plans that can be built in the world they live in. There is one thing his first Tabernacle lacks, after all, and it's a detail he cannot conjure up no matter how vividly he dreams. The perfect Tabernacle of his dreams lacks permanence. Every morning he awakes and it disappears and he tries to sing it back into existence but it always drifts away. That's when he calls Oholiav and they get to work.

"You've been singing again," Oholiav says, a smile slipping across his lips. "I can still see it in your eyes. I hope you spared the Levites this time. It really wouldn't do to have their sense of pitch thrown off."

"Don't you have curtains to weave?" he answers. "I seem to recall sending you off yesterday to weave hundreds of cubits of cloth for curtains. Are you already done, that you have time to pester me? No, I'm pretty sure I would know it if they were done because when I walked past the looms this morning I would have seen them. Why aren't you weaving and leaving me alone?"

"Ah, true. A good point. I do have better things to do than bicker with a bossy know-it-all who demanded that I show up here at the crack of dawn to tell him that his crazy mounting system for my curtains will work when anyone with an inch of sense knows it won't. I'll be off."

"No... come back, 'liav. I'll show you why my crazy mounting system will work. It's all about balance. I can't explain all of it to you, because I don't have the language to show how I'm balancing the forces, but picture the beams as a scale. The curtains stand on both sides of it, weighing down unequally because of the wind's pull. So we put our thumb on the scale to make it match up. You tie cables to the beams that we can adjust, and use knots with just the right amount of slack. I'll tie the knots, don't worry. The Lord's hands will guide mine. It will work."

"And what will we do when... I know you won't hear of it, but what of when you're gone? If this Tabernacle is to outlive you, it can't depend on your genius hands for everything. The Lord knows how much I adore your magical hands, but mere mortal hands must be able to tie the right kind of knots or your system won't work."

"My Tabernacle won't stand forever. But the knots will hold long enough. Trust in the Lord and trust that his handiwork is good."

Oholiav sighs. "Fine, then. We'll go with your plan. But save your magic hands. I have some other ideas about what they can do tonight." He winks and leaves and Bezalel can turn his full attention to building his second Tabernacle, the one made out of wood, cloth and gold. The one built with his heart and his hands instead of his brain.

\---

His Uncle Moses insists on building the menorah himself. He's a shepherd, not a craftsman, though he too is touched with God's blessing. Bezalel sits down with him on the edge of the worksite and they talk about the menorah together.

Moses starts. "It's going to have seven branches in a row. Each of equal height. None of them are to be prioritized. All of creation can receive God's divine light."

"No, Uncle," Bezalel insists firmly. "You're not an artist. You don't understand how the human eye works. They'll look at it and they'll see six branches, and one special one in the middle. That's how it will look to the people. Why not make it a circle? In a circle, everyone truly is equal."

Moses looks pained, maybe even defeated. "No, it has to be a row. I'll be making it out of a single piece of beaten gold."

"Ah. And you won't be able to create a circle that way." He can see it in his head now, the precise hammer strokes and the precise sequence required to make the menorah. There's more that he can see, too, sadness mixed with the beauty, but he doesn't pay attention to it. It's Moses's job to worry about the future.

"I'm not sure I'll be able to create a row menorah that way. But the Lord says it can be done."

"Of course it can be done. I know how to do it. But are you sure you can?"

Suddenly in Moses's eyes Bezalel can see the same determination that stared down Pharaoh. He had demanded freedom for the Israelites and had not wavered until he had gotten it to happen. Bezalel shivers and summons the First Tabernacle in his head.

"Why didn't anyone ever teach you not to backtalk your elders, Bezalel?"

\---

For hours in the sun, it's just him and a hammer, him and a hammer, him and a hammer. Tick tick tick tick tick... Tock tock tock tock tock... It's not like the Levites and their psalms, but it's a form of communion with the Lord God all the same. They are waiting for a building to house their God, so they will know where to praise him. But Bezalel is the one who is building that house. He doesn't have to wait. His sinewy arms pound the hammer onto the wooden posts again and again, sounding out a rhythm that is bigger than him.

"I think you've finally found your musical calling." Bezalel isn't listening but he hears the words anyway and after a moment he processes them. Oholiav's soft, youthful voice makes him smile. He girds up for another sparring session.

"I've almost finished the Table. Leave me alone for a little while and I'll be done." Tap tap tap tap tap... He pounds another set of quintuplets. Then he can feel a hand around his waist and see another hand grab hold of one of the Table's legs. He lets up for a moment to make sure he understands the new configuration of limbs before he starts working again. The table steadies as he continues to hammer.

"Nonsense. You can use another pair of skilled hands. It'll go faster if you don't need to self-clamp."

"Thanks," he says a little begrudgingly. "How's the weaving going?"

"We're making good progress. Another week or two and the curtain will be finished. The hard part is the cherubim, of course. I'm having trouble giving them the right sense of animation. They need to look like they're always moving, always ready to fight for the Lord." He gives Bezalel a curious look for a moment. "Your niece had some good ideas today about that."

"Zahava? Yeah, she's a clever one. You could do worse than to listen to her suggestions. My sister has taught her well."

"And you, too, from the way she's constantly quoting your advice. `But Uncle Tzelly said to do it this way' or `You really want to do that? What would Uncle Tzelly think?' You've made quite an impression on her."

Bezalel laughs. "Nah, I put her up to that. I told her it would annoy you. Don't let her think it worked, or she'll never stop."

"She takes right after you, indeed." Oholiav takes his hand off Bezalel's waist to nudge him in the shoulder with his fist. "Hurry up, Uncle Tzelly," he mimics. "When you finish this table, we can go eat dinner."

He hammers without talking for a few dozen chalakim more. It's just him and a hammer and Oholiav, him and a hammer and Oholiav, a new rhythm in his song of praise to the Lord. When he finishes, he stops and just looks at the Table for a while, comparing it to the Table in his First Tabernacle. Eventually he feels Oholiav's hand slip into his and they slip off to dinner together.

\---

There is a strange paradox that comes of eating manna for every meal. It's not that you get tired of eating manna. You never get tired of manna. It's miraculous. It always tastes fantastic and it never tastes the same. But you get tired of never getting tired. You wish for a meal where you can say "Eh, the soup's okay, but my grandmother made it better." "Hey, remember when Rina got married and you burnt the lentils?" "I've chewed on dry reeds that tasted better than this lamb."

Food encodes memory. When every meal is unremarkably perfect, how do you remember a special meal? It causes a certain disorientation in the masses of Israel. 40 years of wandering, with nothing to mark the 12th year as any different from the 36th. That's why they demanded meat. The manna didn't taste bad, but it held no stories in its savory tastes, no timeline in its chewy bites. It's not really a problem for Bezalel. He marks time in the construction of his second Tabernacle.

And he marks meals by the people he shares them with. Usually, his helper Oholiav. They have a lot of working meals, using the enforced time away from their tools to conduct the essential planning sessions. Sometimes, his parents Uri and Ahuvah, when they don't have Tribal business to deal with. His brothers and sisters and their children, who he has tried to adopt as partially his own. Zahava's his favorite, of course. She often joins him even when her parents don't, taking her place among the builders of the Tabernacle, his other surrogate family.

Those meals may be his favorite. The builders are a boisterous, eclectic group. Barzilai and Ezer, Ophir and Hanan, young and old, strong and massive or small and clever. In the wave of tribalism that swelled up after the Exodus, enforced by their separate traveling arrangements, the children of Israel have lost something of the unity of their enslavement in Egypt. Bezalel wouldn't go back to the slave days, but he's glad that the builders stick together regardless of tribal affiliation. It matters to most Israelites that he's a Judahite from a family that married into the Levite tribe. That was why they so easily agreed to making Oholiav his second, believing that Oholiav's Danite affiliation would serve as a counterbalance to the consolidation of Levitical power. It doesn't matter to the builders, though. They know that Oholiav and Bezalel are in charge because God speaks to them and his words come out in the work of their hands. And because their collaborative style borders on telepathic. It seems like they're never in disagreement about anything.

\---

"No, I won't calm down! You totally botched it, 'liav! I can't say it any other way. Look at it! It's like the cherub has a mustache? " Bezalel waves his hand at the curtain, his nose flaring, his red cheeks swelling, his eyes appearing to bulge.

Oholiav stumbles back a step. His nose is quivering, but his eyes stay resolute. He tries to apologize. "Fine, fine, you're right. I'll do it over. Look, I'm sorry. These things happen. People make mistakes. You never get so angry when Refael drops a stone. I'll take care of it tomorrow. We're only going to lose a day of work." His pause is so momentary it's hard to notice, but Bezalel can see he knows he's about to cross the line and is trying to stop himself. "It's not like there's any hurry, anyway. We have forty years."

Out of the mixture of excuses and cliches Oholiav offers to explain, that's the line that breaks the camel's back, as they both knew it would. Bezalel explodes, half-crying and half-yelling with such force that it drops him to his knees.

"Oholiav, I've shared so much of this project with you. I've let you hold onto my dreams in place of your own. You know what this means to me. This isn't about building a building. It's not about beauty. This is a sanctuary to the Lord, an opportunity for us to construct something that will live on after us. Everything has to be perfect. If you don't respect me enough to understand that, I don't why I bother spending time with you."

He backpedals immediately. "Bezalel, dear... I didn't mean that. I do believe in your dream. I take it seriously. Trust me, we'll fix it. The thing that looks like a mustache will be gone."

"Fine. See that it gets done quickly and correctly." He storms out of the tent.

\---

Life can be tricky when your grandmother is a prophetess. It's hard to hide your frustrations from her. Miriam gives him a look as she enters his tent that makes it clear to him that if he so much as considers telling a lie, she's going to come down on him like he's still an eight year old refusing to stop teasing his sister.

"Ima, how are you?" Bezalel says when he sees her approaching.

She smiles and admits to a few aches and lets him find a place for her to sit down. But she gets down to business quickly. "You need to talk to your uncle."

"I've already talked to him today. He's still trying to figure out how to make the menorah. He won't let me explain it to him. He keeps insisting he's going to create it himself if it kills him."

She rolls her eyes. "I meant your other uncle. The one who's got nothing better to do than meddle in other people's business until someone finishes building his place of avodah."

"Uncle Aaron? I know he's impatient but I offered to let him help us with the construction. I have jobs he can do that he wouldn't be able to screw up too badly. He told me he was too busy with his grandchildren. Little Pinchas is a holy terror. I'm not sure what he'll be willing to do for us now, but I'd be glad for his help."

"Oh, I'm sure he's busy with the children, but he'll jump at the chance to help you. I know him. All you need to do is tell him that you and Oholiav are fighting agai..."

"That? Oh, that's nothing. It'll blow over. He'll come and apologize tomorrow and we'll go back to work. The Tabernacle is too important to let fights get in the way of it."

She shakes her head to make it clear that she's not going to accept that. "Go see my brother, Tzelly. Trust me, it's the right thing to do." She smiles and stands up. "You reminded me. I have a present for Pinchas. A spear I was given by my mistress as we fled Egypt. I think he'll enjoy playing with it. And I'll enjoy seeing it in the hands of an Israelite who has never known slavery." The smile turns wicked as she turns her head away from him.

\---

He goes to see his uncle despite his better judgment. Aaron is leading the Levites in a choral rehearsal and Bezalel waits for them to finish before approaching. Their harmonies rise up in the dry desert air like the clear tones of a ringing bell, harmonics and subharmonics oscillating ecstatically in his inner ear. There are patterns lurking in the music so deep that he cannot explain them even to Oholiav. He lacks the language. Bezalel leans against a stone, closes his eyes, and listens to the music.

"To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent.  
O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever."

When the rehearsal concludes, Aaron is standing next to him even before he realizes it is over. The joys of living among prophets, he muses. They always know where they're supposed to be. He came to see Aaron, ultimately, because he knew there was no fighting it. As soon as his grandmother ordered it, it was going to happen whether he helped or not. Though he supposes if he had ignored her order she might still have prophesied his meeting with Aaron. Perhaps in the violation of her prophecy he would also have learned a lesson. The truth is, when you're up against Miriam there's rarely a way for you to win.

"Nephew," he says, "I can see there is not peace in your tent. How can I help you?"

"I don't need your help. My friendship with Oholiav is not what's important. What matters is that the House of the Lord be built correctly," he says sullenly.

Aaron half-smiles. He shuffles to the side and looks out toward the sunset. Bezalel watches him carefully, sensing that what comes next will be important. Aaron has always had that way about him of drawing your attention completely onto him without really doing anything to provoke it. He can remember childhood gatherings where Aaron's tales kept him and his cousins so busy they forgot entirely their plans to sabotage Uncle Moses's speeches by slipping frogs into his cloak.

"I'm going to tell you a story about my mother, Yocheved. Your great-grandmother, may her bones lie safely back in the land of our enslavement. She was a kind-hearted, wise woman and everyone loved her, but she had a conniving streak. She always had some elaborate plan in motion. Your Uncle Moses is alive because of one of those crazy plans. Our whole nation is free because of that plan. But it was a wild scheme nonetheless. Only my mother could have brought it off successfully, I think. She was cunning, that woman. Though one time, years later, when she took to meddling things didn't work out as well. She was starting to realize that she'd saved her son, but the children of Israel couldn't continue as a nation if she was the only woman giving birth. And at that point I think Moses had run off to Midian. She had no idea if he was still alive, I don't think, because the Lord had told me and Miriam, but He hadn't told her and we were afraid to tell her the other half of that prophecy."

"That she would die before he returned to Egypt?"

"Yes."

"I remember. I was twelve or fourteen then. You let me in on the secret and sent me to try to bring Moses back to see her before she passed away."

"Yes. I knew it wouldn't work, but we had to try anyway. But I was telling you a somewhat happier story. Your great-grandmother decided to organize a midnight gathering of all the tribes. It was really not too different from the night we left Egypt. We stayed up all night, sharing stories and comforting each other, slaughtered lambs, and sought the strength to make it to the next day. My mother's intention was to encourage the young people of Israel to meet. A lot of children were conceived that night. I think you were probably one of them. She reasoned that if all of Israel was pregnant at the same time, the Egyptians wouldn't be able to kill them all. And it worked, for the most part. But the children of Israel were a lot different in those days than when she had grown up and fallen in love with Amram. She'd been born into a family that had turned into a nation."

His voice has turned into a sing-song. Bezalel waits on every word. "Yocheved was one of only a hundred of so descendants of our Patriarch Jacob. There weren't many choices for her. She loved Amram, I truly think she did, but her alternative was to be married to him and not love him. She was told that she was going to marry Amram when she was sixteen and he was four or five years old, too, so she had a lot of time to convince herself that she was in love with him. Thus when my mother snuck a secret midnight festival past the Egyptian taskmasters, she expected it would work the same way. She ordered, or at least suggested vehemently, that families negotiate intelligent, logical marriages for their children. And so it came to pass. The children of Israel drew close to each other that night and laid the groundwork for a new generation. But also born that night were rivalries and jealousies and resentments, because now the young people had choices, men and women numbered like the grains of sand, and no longer could the old rules apply without inflicting pain. I'm not sure if my mother ever regretted that night, but I know I did, for all the fights I averted that sprang from it."

"My father once told me about that festival, Uncle Aaron. What is your point in telling it?"

"Oh, I don't know. My stories don't always have to have messages. Or sometimes they can have multiple messages for multiple people."

"But I'm the only person you're telling it to."

"No, I'm also telling it to myself. I grow old, Bezalel, and sometimes I have to remind myself what life was like back then. But perhaps it has a different message for you."

"Perhaps it does, but I'm not sure what it is."

"Give it some time. Maybe it will occur to you."

\---

Oholiav can hear Bezalel approach the tent. He's waiting when Bezalel enters, an easy smile on his face. "Welcome back," he says. Bezalel gives him a sober glance and then looks away.

"I'm sorry, 'liav," he says, at the exact same moment Oholiav says, "I fixed the curtain." They chuckle for a little longer than is comfortable.

"No, you go first."

"I'm sorry, 'liav. Since I stormed off it seems like everybody who cares about me has grabbed me by the shoulders and told me, in their own way, that I was in the wrong. I didn't want to hear it, but they're all right. I'm lucky to have a partner like you. I'm lucky the Lord gave me a helper so skillful, and I'm lucky that in addition to blessing you with skillful hands, he gave you a wise and generous soul. I try not to forget that. I talk all the time about building a monument that will outlast me, so that my works will not be forgotten, but we both know it's not going to happen the way I wish it would. This Tabernacle I'm... we're... building is a temporary structure. When our children enter the Land, they will build a true Temple to honor the Lord God and testify to his eternal rule over all the Earth. Our Tabernacle will fall, no matter what we do. I just don't like reminders of that. I hope you'll forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive, Tzelly. We worked all night last night and fixed the curtain. No more mustache, just beautiful angelic warriors. The way you wanted it."

"Thank you." He stares at Oholiav for a second with a warm smile, imagining his embrace.

"Okay, let's talk about something else. Has your uncle built the Menorah yet?"

"Not yet, but give him time. He's a stubborn one." He'd let the sun go from the horizon to the top of the sky this morning while watching his uncle struggle with the gold. When the Tabernacle is completed Moses will stand in front of the whole nation and bless their work. He will stand between God and his nation and present the new home they've built for the Lord. If he doesn't have a physical stake in it, Moses probably thinks he'll be a fraud if he presents Bezalel and Oholiav's work as his own.

"That stubbornness seems to be a family trait. Okay, we'll give him more time. There's lots of other work left to do."

"Don't I know it. Why are you making fun of my family when you still have plenty more cloth to weave for the priestly robes?"

"I don't know. I was trying to pick a target that wouldn't storm off in a huff." Bezalel grabs Oholiav around the waist and pins him to the ground, laughing.

\---

It's the closest he will ever be to the Holy Ark, so he cherishes every moment of it. When he finishes, it will go over into the Levites' care, to reside among priests inside the Holy of Holies. Luminescent sheets of gold foil slowly build up on top of each other, hammered to identical thicknesses with infinite care. Then he carefully sets them inlaid inside the wooden box he has made. The Holy Ark will be a wonder, a legend, God's presence signified in wood and metal. It will endure when its present home is no longer required. It will endure long past the time when mankind believes in it. It will endure because Bezalel makes it endure. He does not know why he can't do the same thing with anything else.

The Ark is uncannily precise. Far too precise, really. There's no way that the joints could fit together this perfectly. Even Bezalel's miraculous skills shouldn't extend this far. The way every beam of wood slipped into its partner without any friction had frightened him until he got used to it, the way you can start taking any miracle for granted if you let yourself get lazy. It's obvious that the Lord God is helping him construct this, his resting place among the Israelites. The box radiates a comforting warmth as Bezalel continues his metalworking.

Much of the power of this construction process lies in the intent. He hammers with faith. He hammers with devotion. He hammers without doubt, offering himself up to the Lord God whose touch has given his fingers wisdom and his life meaning. He hammers with courage into the dark uncertainty of the future. He hammers with passion. He hammers with kindness. He hammers with love. He hammers with Oholiav.


End file.
